


rats to the race

by indigostohelit



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: It's been six months since they last saw each other. He won't take off his suit. Why bother, if there's no need to see Steve up close, or touch him?If it also means he can avoid meeting his eyes, well. It's a bonus.(Translated from Spanish.)





	rats to the race

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [ratas a la carrera](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8505094) by [samej](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samej/pseuds/samej). 



> Thank you to DLS for your generous donation, Marvel Trumps Hate for organizing this event, y muchas gracias a bitehard por permitirme traducir tu historia fantastica!

A message arrives, encrypted, impossible to trace, and Tony reads it with his heart clenched. The text is so sparse it's nearly a telegram, but he can hear Steve's voice underneath: the words, the cadence, military but courteous nevertheless.

The truth is that he can't help but feel relieved. Neither he nor the United States nor the world can afford the luxury of turning down help. Oh, he'd like to – he'd _love_ to be able to fight without it – but he can't, and he finds himself typing out a reply.

It's been six months since they last saw each other. He won't take off his suit. Why bother, if there's no need to see Steve up close, or touch him?

If it also means he can avoid meeting his eyes, well. It's a bonus.

.

The Chitauri attacks are happening all over the world, now. They arrive in patrols, and you don't have to be a billionaire genius to know that almost everything's gone to hell – that it's on the point of collapsing altogether.With the Avengers dispersed, there's a limit to what Tony can do by himself.

Okay, so there's an alien menace that might put an end to the planet and the known universe. That doesn't scare Tony. The thought of hearing his name on Steve's lips, the memories of shared nights, of waking up together – _that_ scares him.

And the memory of betrayal. That scares him, too.

.

The first surprise is that Steve is there, in civilian clothes.

Tony had figured that someone else would be wearing his suit, carrying his shield. Maybe Clint, who's one of the few who can throw it without cutting off his own head.

He needs not to think about the possibility that it might be Bucky. He doesn't think he's prepared to see him.

“Tony,” says Steve.

It sounds the same as it had in his nightmares.

“Cap,” he says.

They're in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of Nevada. Tony can hear the blood rushing in his ears. He feels like he could throw up, right now, all over his shoes. He's glad it's been a while since he last ate.

Steve doesn't let the brief peace linger. “You won't even take off the suit?” he says.

“I'd like to stay alive, thanks,” says Tony.

The bitterness is visible on Steve's face, as if he hadn't expected the subject to come up. Well, Tony isn't so naive.

“Look, Tony,” Steve says. “I just want–”

“–to end all of this,” says Tony. “I know. Me too. So." He inhales, exhales. "Let's focus on that, shall we?”

He calls up a projection – what they've managed to analyze so far. Steve bends close to listen. He doesn't attempt to reply.

.

So they start to meet up, just a little, just enough. They communicate through a secure line, one that Tony manages to put together. Every time they use it, Steve's voice in his ear feels like something criminal. Every time they stop, Tony wants to tear his skin to shreds.

He never comes to their meetings in anything but his suit; Steve never comes in anything but his ordinary clothes. Tony can't manage to take off more than his mask, and sometimes not even that. Whenever he does, Steve looks at him like – like something he can't decode. He could decipher Steve easily, once, as if he were a children's puzzle. Now it's as if they've never met before.

Rhodey takes one look at Tony when he arrives and, God bless him, doesn't say a word. Instead, he shuffles towards Tony on his crutches and lets himself fall down at Tony's side.

Tony wants to beg for his forgiveness. He doesn't have the words.

It's been a while since he fell back into old vices. Now, though, every damn time he comes back from one of their meetings, he wants to drink whiskey until he falls over. There's no other way to sleep – not when he sees those blue eyes – how his jaw works when he sees something Tony's projected on one of the tables–

Not touching him is the easiest and most difficult thing Tony has ever done.

.

There are a few interesting peaks in the desert. Tony gets sidetracked into investigating one, on his way to see Steve. Friday reminds him, coolly, that it's been twenty-eight hours since he last slept.

“If I wanted to know,” says Tony, “I would have asked.”

Friday says nothing more. When Tony analyzes the ground under his feet, though, he finds a room – a cell, in the middle of the fucking sand. He opens the hatch that leads inside, disabling the second-rate trap there. Honestly. Amateurs.

The second trap catches him by surprise.

The suit protects him from the worst of it. Part of the shrapnel, though, gets into his joints. It catches fire there. He's thrown through the dry desert air for thirty meters.

The blow to his head lets something hot in his helmet out. Tony only has time to gasp, "Redial," before the world goes black.

.

The voice sneaks up on him. It says his name. It sounds concerned.

Tony knows that voice. He's heard it a thousand times. Angry, worried, sad. Between moans.

“Fuck, Tony,” it says. “I can't. I need you to take off the suit. The manual option isn't working. Tony – fuck. Wait.” A pause. “Override. Star spangled fifteen sixty-seven March.”

Air in his helmet, air on his skin. Air on the cuts on his neck. Light; too much of it. Steve, in front of him.

“Oh, God, you're alive,” says Steve. “You're alive. The suit was blocking me. I didn't know how – the suit, I don't understand it.”

Tony manages to take a few breaths, assesses his damage. “I don't think it's so bad,” he says.

“Sure,” says Steve. “You seem fine.”

He helps Tony stand up, though. Tony hesitates; for a moment it's another year, another desert, and the images are crowding back home into his head. He needs to talk. He needs to not think of it.

“How did you find me?” he asks.

“You called me,” says Steve. “I located you with it. We weren't far.” His tone is angry. God, Tony's missed that. “Why did you investigate something like this on your own, Tony? Goddamn it.” He turns away. “You're still the same.”

Tony wants to say that he doesn't have anyone to miss him. He dismisses the impulse; he looks pathetic enough.He nearly wants to say that if Steve wanted him to bring Rhodey here in his arms, he could have done it himself.

“We?” he says instead, slowly.

“Clint and me,” says Steve.

Tony nods. At least it's just Clint.

Steve helps him along the rest of the way, dragging the carcass of his suit with the other arm. When they arrive, he says a few words to Clint that Tony doesn't listen to, and fetches the medicine kit.

“Take it off,” he says. He kneels by Tony's side, his hands going to the hem of Tony's shirt, but Tony stops him.

“Come on, Tony,” he says. “If you bleed out, nobody is going to believe that I had nothing to do with it.”

He's smiling, a little, and Tony doesn't want to respond to his body, and he doesn't want to deal with this. He lets Steve work. Steve is kind enough not to say anything about the bruise on his ribs, already days-old and yellowing. He cleans all the places on Tony's body that are bleeding; he soaks the gauze in disinfectant until it hurts to look at, as if it were going to break. His fingers are just as Tony remembers them, rough and calloused, his hands as big as baseball gloves.

“Tony,” he says, “why did you leave my override code active?”

He says it without meeting Tony's eyes. He says it, in fact, as if he were asking Tony what time it is; as if the question isn't the one Tony's been hoping he won't ask. As if Tony will be able to answer anything other than the truth: _I couldn't erase it, because erasing it would be destroying the last thing. The last refuge of my confidence in you._

Steve keeps moving. It's as if he doesn't expect an answer. Or as if he already knows.

He puts one of his hands on Tony's chest to reach his other shoulder. And Tony – well, he's never been good at resisting temptation.

He lifts his hand and slides it around the back of Steve's neck, his fingers in Steve's hair. Steve looks at him, his face still. They stay that way for seconds – for years; for lifetimes.

When Steve opens his mouth, Tony shakes his head, moves his thumb to Steve's lips. He touches him: the line of his jaw, the pulse of his neck. His hair, again. He's filled up by that look – by the image of having him, just for a second; even though he can't afford it, even though he can't allow it, even though he can't forget a second of what's passed between them.

Kissing would be as easy as lifting his face another two centimeters. And Steve would let him; and that's the worst part, that the decision is Tony's, and Tony would rather die than make it. If only Steve would do it, as if things were like they were at the beginning, and they kissed with anger, and with hatred, and as if they didn't love each other.

He wants to go back to the beginning.

He drops his arm and closes his eyes, and listens to Steve let out a long, shaky breath.

He doesn't move again until Steve is done, and by then, his eyelids feel as if they weigh ten tons. “You can fall asleep here,” says Steve, quiet. “We won't touch you.” He pauses. “I won't touch you.”

He shouldn't. But there's a lot of things he shouldn't do.

Tony sleeps. 


End file.
